State GOP chair ducks process server
Judge says election redo not likely on April 24
A redo of the election of Arizona Republican Party officers appears as though it will not take place on April 24 as GOP activists had hoped, after a Maricopa County Superior Court judge said Thursday it was unlikely legal deliberations over the effort would be resolved by then.
The legal challenge has been temporarily sidetracked by top state GOP officials ducking process servers as the activists suing the party leaders face scrutiny over the signatures they gathered to force another election.
The development prolongs the fight inside the Arizona Republican Party over the legitimacy of its Jan. 23 elections, where Chair Kelli Ward won reelection in a race that went to a runoff.
Arizona GOP activists gathered 353 signatures from state committee people in an effort to force a do-over of all party elections after Ward and state party officials would not heed repeated calls to audit the results and procedures of the election even as she made similar demands after former President Donald Trump’s loss to President Joe Biden.
Ward and state party officials claimed the activists had not gathered enough signatures to force another election and accused the activists of tricking people into signing onto their effort. A review of the signatures by AZGOP representatives found some duplicative or ineligible signatures while other people, according to the party, asked that their names be removed.
Ward’s assertions drew a lawsuit from the activists, represented by attorney Timothy La Sota. “In terms of forcing the party to have the election, we’re going to pursue that aggressively,” he said Thursday.
The complaint asks the court to force the party to fairly count all signatures gathered by the activists and seeks a court order to prevent Ward and any other state party representatives from using the party’s resources to communicate about the special meeting. The lawsuit accused Ward of trying to sabotage activists’ efforts.
According to court documents, Ward and Arizona GOP Secretary Yvonne Cahill dodged a process server who sought to notify them of the complaint.
In an April 6 legal declaration to the court, process server Gary Viscum wrote he first attempted to notify Ward and Cahill on April 1 at the Arizona Republican Party headquarters in northcentral Phoenix. Neither was there.
He left a “courtesy copy of the lawsuit” he was charged with serving them, he wrote in the April 6 legal declaration.
He went to Cahill’s home in Scottsdale and rang the doorbell.
“Though I heard a doorbell ring and heard a woman speaking inside and identified Ms. Cahill from a picture when she came to the window, a male answered the door and stated she was not home,” the declaration said.
Viscum tried contacting Ward by phone, at her home in Lake Havasu City, and wrote that she maintains a second residence in the East Valley. It’s unclear if he tried to reach her there. Viscum wrote that he also texted and emailed Ward, but received no response.
“I can not imagine this is the first time the AZGOP has been named in a lawsuit and I would think you have a policy for accepting service of such documents,” Viscum wrote to Ward. “I also can not imagine that it is the policy of the AZGOP to actively avoid service of legal documents naming it in any type of legal action. I am willing to meet you at almost any time and any place in Phoenix to get these documents served.”
La Sota asked Judge Michael Kemp to allow for alternative service of the documents, writing that “traditional services is highly unpractical.” The judge agreed.
Jack Wilenchik, the attorney representing the state party, told The Arizona Republic on Thursday “at no point was there any doubt that we would respond to this case.” He said La Sota’s concern over service was a reflection of the attorney “being over anxious about service.”
At Thursday’s court hearing, Kemp indicated the legal matter would not be resolved in time for an April 24 gathering. “As a practical matter, I don’t know how we’re going to get that done,” Kemp said.
Wilenchik has asked the judge to dismiss the lawsuit outright and argued the activists have improperly carried out efforts to force an election do-over.
In a brief, Wilenchik wrote the activists wanted a court to intervene “without a clear legal basis, and appear to have filed suit mostly for press and publicity because they feel that they are not getting their way in internal party politics.”
He argued the fight is limited to internal political party elections — not public elections — that can’t be decided in a court of law.
“Aside from the salient First Amendment issues that this raises (with regard to the right to freedom-of-assembly), it is also a waste of the Court’s time and runs contrary to the clearly-established principle that internal party political matters are not justiciable,” he wrote.
Kemp said he will have to be persuaded that he should be involved in the internal political party’s affairs: “I’m not saying how I would rule on that, but that’s certainly a concern raised by Mr. Wilenchik that I agree I have a concern for and as a legal matter, you’d have to convince me that I have the authority to do that.”
“I can not imagine this is the first time the AZGOP has been named in a lawsuit and I would think you have a policy for accepting service of such documents.”
Gary Viscum
Process server, in letter written to Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward